Each year, thousands of pheasant hunters flock to Iowa spending millions of dollars statewide. But recently, the industry has been decimated by mother nature and the loss of land.

Now pheasant hunting is making a comeback.

"We've had better pheasant hunting this year than we've had the past two or three years combined," said Jared Wiklund with Pheasants Forever.

And finally, good news for Iowa's pheasant hunting industry.

"I expect our harvest numbers and our hunter numbers to be up from last year," said biologist Todd Bogenschutz.

"It's extremely, extremely important for our economy and it's something we'd like to see come back," said Wiklund.

This once-booming sport, which used to inject more than $100 million annually into the state's economy, has now fallen on hard times.

"In 1996, we had 200,000 pheasant hunters in Iowa. Last year the estimates were 60,000," said Bogenschutz.

The alarming decline blamed primarily on weather, namely very snowy winters from 2007 to 2011.

"To have five of them back-to-back, we haven't seen that looking at the data looking back to World War II. So that's hammered the population down down down with no chance for recovery until last year, when we had 17 inches of snow all winter," said Bogenschutz.

Biologists also say a major factor in the decline is loss of habitat. Since the mid 1990s, suitable hunting areas have shrunk by 26 percent -- primarily because landowners can make more money planting crops than conserving acreage.

"Habitat side of it is all related to commodity prices and ethanol and demand for corn, soybeans, and land," said Bogenschutz.

Wiklund said, "It used to be huge compared to what it is now. We want to get it back to that."

Bogenschutz said he is keeping his fingers crossed that the industry can bounce back.